No Fear. Nashville’s India Ramey must have taken some inspiration from that clothing line’s name. Lots of musicians have songs about finding their true self and coming to terms with who they are. On Villain Era, Ramey takes it a step further with a confidence and frankness that would make Clint Eastwood blush. She doesn’t just own her mistakes, she revels in them. Add those stories atop a honky-tonk, old school country music soundtrack and you wonder if anyone has optioned the movie yet.
Speaking of movies, CD opener We Ride At Dawn is the soundtrack if Sergio Leone had done a flick where all the gunfighters were women and “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” Nobody’s Coming sounds a little more American western than Italian, in a life metaphor about getting yourself out of quicksand. Or as she sings it, “what am I made of, it’s time I found out.” Closer Ghost Town also has a western style. It’s an epitaph to the Lower Broadway that was foundational to country music versus the drunken bridesmaid, silicon and polyester paean it’s become.
As I mentioned, a number of the cuts are at least partially autobiographical. Welcome To My Villain Era is a honky-tonk two-stepper about sticking with your true self, and if that makes her the villain, “I’ll wear that black hat with pride.” Scattered And Smothered retells the story of a drunken confession that her current relationship is not what she bargained for. The title tells you all you need to know about the setting of said conversation. Red Red Roses could have been a Loretta Lynn number advising that those flowers come with thorns and should have been a red flag. Cryin’ In My Lingerie is a country twanger about a husband who doesn’t lover her any more and as a result she’s “on my way to being a divorcee.”
For her fifth album, India Ramey left the friendly confines of Nashville and went to Los Angeles. Producer Eric Corne put together a crack band of studio musicians including Ted Russell Kamp, Chris Masterson, and Eleanor Whitmore. Instead of just giving her a Nashville country music sound, they listened to her stories and ideas and recorded India Ramey’s personality on a hard drive. And like a good guilty pleasure, Villain Era is an album you just can’t turn away from.
About the author: I've actually driven from Tehatchapee to Tonopah. And I've seen Dallas from a DC-9 at night.